The Uncommon Box throws its spotlight on an amazingly talented food blogger in our Food Art category.
Let us introduce you to the lovely Chitrangada. She wears many hats, including that of a mother and a hard core foodie. In her words, she loves ‘to spread the love for cooking to all’.
Her first inspiration was her mother and that inspired me to create something that would not only satisfy ones hunger but to give pleasure. A pleasure of good food.Blogging has also turned her into a self taught food photographer and she claims she really enjoys this new learning process.
We are sharing one simple recipe from Chitrangada’s kitchen. Hope you like it and try it out!
Bengal is famous for its sweets (Misti). Sweet is an important part in bengali life, be it religious or social or personal celebration sweets always come first. It is a practice in bengali community (hindu or muslim) to distribute sweets during any festivities. The term used in bengali is ‘Mukh-o-misti’, it means to taste some sweets. There are special sweets which are made only during a particular time of the year, like during Sankranti (mid of January) different types of pithe are made. There are sweets for special occassions also, like chaler payes (rice pudding) is specially made to celebrate someone’s birthday. In bengal if you are visiting someone the host will serve a plate of sweets along with tea and snacks, and the guest will bring a box of sweets for the host as well.
The main ingrdient in bengali sweets is chana (home made cottege cheese) and sugar or jaggery (seasonal) is used as sweetner. Sweets are made in different ways, deep fried or steamed or shallow fried. There is a huge variety of sweets found in bengal, rosogolla, pantua, sandesh, chanar jilipi, kalojam, komolabhog, chamcham, mihidana, seetabhog, malpua, misti doi….the list is endless.
Today I made some Sandesh. Sandesh is small sweets made from chana(homemade cottage cheese). The meaning of the word ‘Sandesh’ is news or message, may be it has derived from the practice of sending sweets along with messenger to deliver some good news. Sandesh is the oldest sweet dish recipe in India and believed to be originated in Bengal. Sandesh can be of different varieties, depending on the ingredients used or method of cooking or flavouring and stuffings are used. Sandesh is a very healthy food, one can take it as snack also. It is very good for children, as it contains protien(milk protein), carbohydrate. Sandesh can very soft or hard, smooth or granular in texture depending on how it has been made.
This time I did the simplest of them all, I made some chana, mashed it, then mixed it with sugar and shaped into round balls…and voila my sandeshs were ready.
Ingredients to make Sandesh:
- Milk: 1.2 ltr
- Lime juice: 3tbsp
- Powdered sugar: 1/2 cup
- Vanilla essence: 7-8drops
- Saffron starnds: few
- Warm milk: 1/4 cup
- Dry fruits: to garnish
How to make the sandesh:
1. Soak few saffron strands in warm milk in a bowl, cover the bowl and keep aside.
2. Chopp the dry fruits and keep aside.
3.Boil the milk in a heavy bottom pan. As the milk boils add the lime juice gradually and stir. The milk will curdle to make the chana. Strain the chana in a muslin cloth. Run cold water through the chana, this helps to wash out any flovour of lime in the chana as well keeps the chana soft. Tie the chana in the muslin cloth and hung it or keep it on a strainer for 1 hr, so that all the excess water will drain out.
4. Now take the chana in a plate and mash it with your palm for 3-4min.
5.Mix powdered sugar, vanilla essence to the chana, mix well. Here I must tell you one thing that the amount of sugar depends on your taste. So as you mix the sugar gradually to the chana and taste it and if needed add more sugar.
**Many of you have asked, while mixing the sugar the chana becomes too soft. Make sure the chana is properly drained and if you find it difficult to handle, then just cook for a little time on a non stick pan.
6. Make some round balls or any other shape of youe choice. If you have any mold you can use that also. Garnish with saffron soaked milk and chopped dry fruits.
We encourage all kind of talented piece of work whether it’s a writeup’s, articles, poems, sketches, doodling, painting, food styling or about fashion or travelling or photography.
So do you cook or blog about food? Is it your passion? Or do you know of a talented food artiste too? Write into us at theuncommonbox@gmail.com mentioning the category Food Art in the subject line. We would love to hear from you!
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